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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Show/Hide vs Checkbox
From:       Tim Hutt <tdh29 () cam ! ac ! uk>
Date:       2005-03-30 18:10:20
Message-ID: 200503301910.20466.tdh29 () cam ! ac ! uk
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On Wednesday 30 March 2005 18:25, Thomas Zander wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 01:18:49 +0100, Tim Hutt <tdh29@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Just a quick note to say that using menu items that change from (for
> > example) 'Show Offline Users' to 'Hide Offline Users' is a poor design.
> >
> > Changing the text requires that you actually *read* the menu each and
> > every time you use it. This is obviously bad. Most people navigate gui's
> > primarily by position. This is why they top left menu is always 'File'
> > (or similar) and contains 'New', 'Open', 'Save' in that order. And
> > 'Exit'/'Close' at the bottom. It helps to know where things are.
>
> I personally think the opposite; people read the menus anyway (how
> would you otherwise claim they hit the right entry?)

Like I said, by it's position, and general word-shape. In the same way that 
you don't read each letter when you read a whole word. You look at the shape 
it makes.

Children learning to read read each letter. They go 'D... o... g....    dog!' 
Whereas you and I just look at it, and some part of our brain tells us it 
says dog without having to read each letter. The effect is even more obvious 
for longer words.

I'm not saying it's not easier the first time you look at it. But it is much 
slower and more tedious every subsequent time.

The same goes for dialog boxes with long button labels eg:

Document modified.  [Save changes to current document] [Discard the changes 
you have made] [Return to editor]

vs

Document modified. Save changes?   [Save/Yes] [Discard/No] [Cancel]

After you've seen it the first time, you remember what each one does and just 
need to identify which is which next time rather than read them all again. 
This is much easier with short labels. Fortunately KDE does well here.

> and 'hide'/show' is a lot more intuitive then a checkbox.

Perhaps, but I think it is fairly obvious what they do in both cases.

> You obviously have a different usage pattern; while Apple actually did
> the usability testing.

I think you'll find that the Apple userbase is vastly different from KDE's. 
Regardless, I didn't know Apple did any usability testing. Perhaps they are 
right for completely novice users, but not for me, and I expect not for most 
moderately advanced computer users. And practically kde users will be at 
least moderately computer literate for some time. Why change things for a 
phantom userbase?

> I think it would be usefull to do some of our 
> own usability testing before we can change this back to just being
> checkboxes.

I agree. Didn't know it was ever changed from check boxes! Maybe a poll among 
KDE users (on the dot? Is that dot abuse? :-) as to which they would prefer.

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